Devon Plans Downtown Skyscraper

[mmonroe]

Does anyone like round buildings?

[Pete]

Round buildings tend to have very inefficient floor plans, especially for office buildings.

There were a spate of them in the 60's and 70's but you don't see many in new construction. Slightly curved is more efficient and still nice on the eye.

[mmonroe]

HA! Take that Atlanta!

[flintysooner]

Does anyone like round buildings?

No.

[Kerry]

The Westin Hotel picure above doesn't do it justice. It is much cooler from another angle.

[jbrown84]

No, not a fan of round buildings--except Founders Tower.

[bbarnett]

I would imagine that if a new skyscraper is built in OKC, it would have to be taller than the 52 story Williams Tower in Tulsa. Note to Pete Bryzcki, maybe this is the 'crystal spike' we have been waiting for since college?!

Brian Barnett

[OUGrad05]

No, not a fan of round buildings--except Founders Tower.

ugh, founders tower is incredibly ugly IMO

[solitude]

ugh, founders tower is incredibly ugly IMO

It's funny.....people from around here have always seen it and don't think about it - or find it ugly as OUGrad does. However, there's not a building in OKC that gets mentioned by out-of-towners more than the round Founder's Tower. There just aren't a lot of round skyscrapers and most people have never seen one and think they're interesting. At least that's my experience whenever I've driven people around our city.

[OUGrad05]

It's funny.....people from around here have always seen it and don't think about it - or find it ugly as OUGrad does. However, there's not a building in OKC that gets mentioned by out-of-towners more than the round Founder's Tower. There just aren't a lot of round skyscrapers and most people have never seen one and think they're interesting. At least that's my experience whenever I've driven people around our city.

Yeah thats a good point, lots of people know about the "round" building but its still ugly!

[soonerfever]

Founder's Tower is unique in its own I guess. Like Solitude said even if you find it unpleasant it still catches your attention. As most of you know one of the most talked about buildings in Tulsa is the University Club (syringe) Tower. While I am not a big fan of round buildings, especially the two mentioned above, they just seem to jump out at you.

[flintysooner]

Founder's Tower, Church of Tomorrow, fairground arena, Cocoa Cola bottling plant, Rose Bowl in Tulsa, Harvard Tower in Tulsa, etc, are all iconic of a period in time. It was that period of experimentation with light weight concrete and interesting shapes and a kind of futuristic optimism in the power of science and engineering.

These buildings are iconic because seeing any one of them reminds one not of a place but a time. The Chase (Liberty for me) Tower is like that. Seeing a tall glass tube makes one think of a time more than any specific place.

It is probably impossible for any building to completely escape the imprint of its time. There are those buildings which have managed to represent their places and have survived their times.

I think from what I've read that the ambition for the Devon building is to try to create something more identifiable with its place. I am certain it will be a wonderful structure regardless. But it will take the passing of time before anyone knows if it truly is iconic in that sense. I suspect a sure way to fail at that goal is to establish it as one of the design criteria at the beginning.

[solitude]

Founder's Tower, Church of Tomorrow, fairground arena, Cocoa Cola bottling plant, Rose Bowl in Tulsa, Harvard Tower in Tulsa, etc, are all iconic of a period in time. It was that period of experimentation with light weight concrete and interesting shapes and a kind of futuristic optimism in the power of science and engineering.

These buildings are iconic because seeing any one of them reminds one not of a place but a time. The Chase (Liberty for me) Tower is like that. Seeing a tall glass tube makes one think of a time more than any specific place.

It is probably impossible for any building to completely escape the imprint of its time. There are those buildings which have managed to represent their places and have survived their times.

I think from what I've read that the ambition for the Devon building is to try to create something more identifiable with its place. I am certain it will be a wonderful structure regardless. But it will take the passing of time before anyone knows if it truly is iconic in that sense. I suspect a sure way to fail at that goal is to establish it as one of the design criteria at the beginning.

Well said. I especially liked this:

"It is probably impossible for any building to completely escape the imprint of its time."

So very true.

[metro]

What if Devon took a more artistic approach like The Blue Tower in Manhattan. I think it'd be cool to add a punch of color to our skyline with multicolored glass windows.

[Kerry]

These colored windows are too 1960's. I think in 10 years people will be saying "What the hell were they thinking". Watch an episode of Sweat Equity on DIY Network and see how many people are pulling those multi colored tiles out of old bathrooms.

[CuatrodeMayo]

I like it. EDIT: A lot.

[BDP]

Watch an episode of Sweat Equity on DIY Network and see how many people are pulling those multi colored tiles out of old bathrooms.

Maybe they do it because it's not avaialble at Home Depot any more, so they think it's not good looking? I don't know. But when all of these people make a similar change at once to their homes like that, all it does is make the preserved places more valuable and more in style. One of the functions of hipness and style is that the more popular it becomes, the less hip it becomes. And everything that is now considered "classic" at one time went out of style. You can pretty much count on it that whatever is most popular at the time is what people will look back on and say "what were they thinking?".

[flintysooner]

Santa Fe, New Mexico is a good example of a place iconic design which was created with that purpose.

[lonestarstatesux]

Tetris!!!

[Kerry]

It looks to me like a place that bought all of their windows at some discount place and couldn't get colors that match. Now if they went with some kind of gradiant effect that would look cool. Dark at the bottom and lighter as it goes up.

[sethsrott]

I think something like this would be cool...we don't have a cone building in this part of the country...iconic...multicolored.

BTW, it is the SwissRE building in London.

[CuatrodeMayo]

Another cool building in the same city:

[bombermwc]

Seth - I always thought that thing in London looked like it should have come out of Christi's Toy Box...LOL.

Not a fan of the round, but if it's curved, maybe. I don't think anyone here expects a square structure, so we're going to see something at least interesting. Otherwise how would it be "iconic"?

[metro]

I've always liked the SwissRE building in London, one of my favs. Definitely iconic and different.

[David Pollard]

SwissRE is really nice, especially close up. The atria that circle up the sides of the building are a great feature making it unique in London, although it does echo the Commerzbank building in Frankfurt.

For OKC though I think this might be just a bit too much. I would love to see a building that fits into the existing surroundings, but STILL stands out for its uniqueness. This sounds contradictory, but IMO is the test of a truly great building.
In other words, classic!